Review: A Court of Mist and Fury - Sarah J Maas (Or in other words: Why I won't be buying any more books by Sarah J Maas)

The stunning sequel to Sarah J. Maas' New York Times bestselling A Court of Thorns and Roses.

Feyre survived Amarantha's clutches to return to the Spring Court - but at a steep cost. Though she now has the powers of the High Fae, her heart remains human, and it can't forget the terrible deeds she performed to save Tamlin's people.

Nor has Feyre forgotten her bargain with Rhysand, High Lord of the feared Night Court. As Feyre navigates its dark web of politics, passion, and dazzling power, a greater evil looms - and she might be key to stopping it. But only if she can harness her harrowing gifts, heal her fractured soul, and decide how she wishes to shape her future - and the future of a world cleaved in two.

With more than a million copies sold of her beloved Throne of Glass series, Sarah J. Maas's masterful storytelling brings this second book in her seductive and action-packed series to new heights.

ACOTAR Series:
A Court of Thorns and Roses
A Court of Mist and Fury
Future titles to be confirmed

Visit Sarah J Maas' website for more information

Review:
Okay so I'm going to come right out and say it, A Court of Mist and Fury is the biggest pile of crap I have EVER wasted my money purchasing. I wish I'd waited until the reviews started rolling in rather than pre-order it months ago but I've learnt my lesson Sarah J Maas, I HAVE LEARNT MY LESSON. My pre-order of Empire of Storms has been cancelled and I will NEVER start reading a new series by her until it is completely finished and has been vetted in full by people I trust.

I know a lot of people don't agree with me and that's fine, I'm glad other people are enjoying this book but I HATED it and I'm going to be honest about it. I am so incredibly heartbroken that Sarah J Maas has once again betrayed my trust and destroyed a series I loved. Be warned now that this review is going to include spoilers, I only actually managed to force myself to read the first 7 chapters (just 87 pages) but I have been speaking to several friends who have read much further so I know what happens later than that and I'll be discussing it in detail so if you don't want to know what I'm so unhappy about feel free to walk away from my review space. There will definitely be spoilers for ACOTAR and I think I'll probably touch on Queen of Shadows too so if you're not up to date on the Throne of Glass series it's probably best to look away now.

To make one thing clear I absolutely adored A Court of Thorns and Roses, it's one of my favourite books and I loved it even more when I reread it in anticipation of starting ACOMAF. The whole reason I'm so upset about A Court of Mist and Fury is because I was so, so excited about it in the first place. Perhaps if it hadn't been one of my most anticipated reads of the year I wouldn't feel so let down, perhaps if I hadn't reread ACOTAR immediately before starting ACOMAF I wouldn't feel so devastated and perhaps if I'd never read Queen of Shadows I wouldn't feel so angry that SJM has done the exact same thing to Tamlin that she did to Chaol. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps but if wishes came true then ACOTAR would either be a stand alone novel or ACOMAF would be an entirely different book.

Let's talk about ACOTAR for a bit, that book is based on two stories: Beauty and the Beast, where the beast's curse is broken because he finds his TRUE LOVE and she is able to look past the external monster and fall in love with the man inside (just like Feyre did with Tamlin); and Tam Lin, which is a less well known Scottish folk tale about a man being rescued from the queen of the fairies by his TRUE LOVE (oh, that's right just like Feyre did for Tamlin!). EVERYTHING about book 1 was based on the fact that Feyre and Tamlin are head over heels crazy about each other, EVERYTHING that happens is because of that love. Tamlin gives Feyre her freedom knowing he will damn himself and his entire court and put them under Amarantha's control but he sets her free because she is more important to him than ANYTHING else. Feyre only comes back to Prythian because she loves Tamlin so much that she can't stand to be without him. EVERYTHING she goes through, all the tasks she has to complete, all the horrific things she has to suffer she does it all because Tamlin is worth it, we're inside her head and we hear her time and time again thinking about how much he means to her and how she can stand anything if only it will free him. For crying out loud she even gives her life to save him and the ONLY reason she is given a second chance (and is therefore even alive!) is because the other High Lords all see that she isn't the fickle hearted human Amarantha claimed she was but that she TRULY LOVES TAMLIN! That is the ONLY reason they all save her, because they saw what she was willing to sacrifice and they can see how devastated Tamlin is when he thinks he's lost her.

If you take that love away you make the entire first book completely pointless and you absolutely 100%, without a shadow of doubt, prove that Amarantha was right and that humans wouldn't know true love if it bit them on the arse! There was NEVER even a hint of a triangle in ACOTAR, yes Rhys was a flirt but it always felt like he was doing that more to get at Tamlin than because he had any real feelings for Feyre and Feyre never looked at Rhys twice, she was completely focused on Tamlin through the whole story. I'll never be a fan of love triangles in general but when you take a couple who are totally in love and about to walk off into the sunset together and then needlessly rip them apart just to shoehorn another hero into the story then I'm going to be even more upset and angry about it.

Let's talk about Rhys. In the first book he threatens Feyre, he tortures her (did you all forget the scene where he's twisting the broken bone that is sticking out of her arm just to prove that she needs his help and should make a bargain with him? A bargain that gives him a week of her time every month for the REST OF HER LIFE?) oh and he also drugs her on a nightly basis to parade her around practically naked in front of a crowd, apparently he never touches her but she doesn't remember so how can we be sure of that? Let's not forget he gave what he thought was her name to Amarantha so that her whole family could be tortured and murdered. That's the hero people think she should be with over Tamlin? Tamlin who protected her, looked after her family, gave her everything she asked for and who gave up his own life and the freedom of everyone else he cares about just to keep her safe? Give me a break. I know it's the author's story and she has every right to take it in any direction that she chooses but I don't have to keep reading this crap. I don't have to watch her once again turn a character who has been nothing but good in the previous book into a completely different person just to convince me to switch teams. Looks like Tamlin got the same personality transplant as Chaol just so that SJM can shoehorn Rowan sorry RHYS into the story.

Of course both Tamlin and Feyre are going to have been affected by everything they went through, and I'm sure he'd want to do whatever he could to keep her safe but I don't for a second believe that he would have done it in the way he does it in ACOMAF. Can't we for once have ADULT characters (Feyre is 19 after all!) ACT LIKE ADULTS? Can't they talk through their problems and resolve them like normal people? Does SJM have to turn Feyre into a fickle and whiny little idiot who jumps from one bed to another at the drop of a hat just because a new guy shows an interest in her and he happens to be hot? Are you telling me that if Rhys was ugly any of this would have happened? I don't think so.

Before people get started on telling me how wonderful Rhys is let me clarify something else. I actually grew to really like Rhys by the end of ACOTAR (in spite of all the horrible things he did!) and I would have been over the moon to read a full book about him, a book that gave him the chance to redeem himself and gave us a chance to see that he had been doing everything he could to fight against Amarantha in the background. I would have bitten SJM's arm off for a book like that, one that put him together with ANY other woman apart from Feyre. I was actually kind of hoping that Rhys would hook up with Feyre's sister Nesta because let's face it they both had some redeeming to do by the end of ACOTAR and it would have been AMAZING to see it happen. I was excited to find out more about the Night Court, I was looking forward to meeting the exciting new characters that SJM promised and I would have happily kept buying book after book in this world if she had kept things fresh and exciting rather than recycling plots from the Throne of Glass series and making the same mistakes over and over again.

I probably could have even got over Feyre falling out of love with Tamlin if it had been done in a better way. You do NOT have to turn a previously nice character into an arsehole to make me like another character. What I hate most about this book is not only the way SJM destroyed Tamlin's character and turned him into something he's not but also the way she made Feyre seem so fickle and uncaring. She acts so ridiculously childishly by not talking to Tamlin about how she is feeling and then she just goes off and leaves him for good with only a letter. She doesn't even have the decency to break up with him face to face before she goes off and mates Rhys. Does nobody else care how Tamlin feels about that? I'm completely and utterly heartbroken for him and it was all so UTTERLY POINTLESS. What was the point of reading ACOTAR? The whole first book has been invalidated by the actions Feyre takes in ACOMAF and it's horrible. I wish I'd never heard a thing about this book and had just stuck with the HEA that A Court of Thorns and Roses gave us.

Why couldn't we have had Feyre and Tamlin as side characters and moved the story into someone else's POV? There is no doubting that Rhys would (and probably has if you can ignore all the stuff I'm unhappy about!) make a brilliant lead. ACOMAF could have been so epic that I can hardly stand it! That's what I was so excited about, that's what I was so desperate to read and that's why I'm so utterly HEARTBROKEN that we were given this pile of rubbish instead. SJM has wrecked this series for me, she broke my trust in Queen of Shadows but she completely destroyed it in A Court of Mist and Fury and I'm never going to be able to pick up one of her books without worrying that she's going to do something similar again. I don't think she's actually capable of writing about a heroine who sticks with one guy for an entire series! Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, the only thing I can guarantee is that she won't be fooling me a third time!

Oh and thanks for that extra kick in the 

teeth SJM, I really appreciate it!

Source: Purchased

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